"People just drop in to complain about a drainage issue and have to sit through a prayer." - Ed Joyce

No sooner did the public comment period of last week’s meeting of the Newberry Township Board of Supervisors get underway than a member of the audience stepped up to the microphone and offered to say a prayer.

Those present, including the township supervisors, rose to their feet, bowed their heads and joined in the unison recital of the Lord’s Prayer.

No doubt, this long-standing practice in Newberry raises questions about the separation of state and church. The fact is Newberry has for decades opened its monthly township meetings with the biblically inspired prayer, for most of that time, a township official leading the prayer.

&lt;a href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/7517165/"&gt;Should prayer be included in public government meetings?&lt;/a&gt;

Six months ago, the prayer moment was moved to the public comment section after town officials received a letter objecting to the practice.

Township officials have long held that no laws prohibit local governments from dedicating time to prayer at meetings. Indeed, they point out, the state Legislative chambers and their federal counterparts open sessions with some type of prayer.

“The board is not opening the meeting with prayer,” said township manager Don Keener. “We used to do that..but we haven’t done that in some time.”

Newberry is not alone. Across the country, local governments have long tested the limits of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which forbids government from passing any law respecting an establishment of religion.

And the nation's top legal authority is about to once again provide additional legal clarity on the meaning of the First Amendment clause.

On Nov. 6, when the U.S. Supreme Court begins to hear arguments in the case of Town of Greece v. Galloway it will likely once and for all rule whether government entities can continue to get around the Constitution with narrow interpretations.

In that case, the town council of that upstate New York community will argue that prayer in government meetings should only be forbidden if they actually coerce members of the public into believing the message.

The Greece town council has for years opened its meetings with prayers led by members of the clergy or local citizens. In striking down the practice, a lower court ruled that under the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, the content of the prayers created the impression that the city government endorsed the Christian faith.

Greece attorneys are hoping the high court will replace the “endorsement” test applied by the lower court with the coercion test.

The case underscores the tension and scope of the high court’s jurisprudence with regards to the Establishment Clause, said Alan Garfield, a professor of law, at Widener University School of Law.

In the past, justices have opined, for instance, that government should not endorse one religion over another. The court has also opined that government should not endorse religion over nonreligion.

“If you look at it through that lens, then you think, well they really shouldn’t be doing the Lord’s Prayer,” Garfield said. “The Lord’s Prayer is associated with Judeo-Christian traditions. It’s going to make people for whom that is not part of their tradition to feel excluded.”

Judges who have been more willing to allow religious activity in the public sphere have ruled that government should not coerce anyone into participating in prayer, he said.

“That’s not happening in Newberry,” Garfield said. “But if you are the only non-Christian in the audience and everybody stands and bows their head and says the prayer, you are going to feel pretty darn uncomfortable. You look at it from that lens... and you might say they should not be doing this.”

A stricter line of authority from the Supreme Court focuses on justices who have opined that church and state can never be separated, otherwise, Garfield said, if a church is on fire, the local fire department would not be allowed to go and put it out.

The argument that religion is part of the nation’s tradition and history remains a strong line of authority with the court

“You can’t take the angels out of Los Angeles or the saint out of San Francisco,” Garfield said. “Our people are a religious people.”

Indeed, he said, the Supreme Court opens its sessions with “God save this honorable court,” to the approval of even liberal justices.

“Prayer is a step further but it’s not uncommon,” Garfield said. “Even President Obama ends his speeches saying God bless America, and George W Bush openly made references to the New Testament.”

Seen through Marsh, Newberry isn’t breaking any law, Garfield said. Seen through the prism that supervisors are endorsing one religion over another, possibly making members of the public feel coerced or excluded, then it would be violating the law.

“The Newberry city council might say we are not doing this we are opening to public comment. If someone wants to do that... but if week after week someone in the community says the Lord’s Prayer, it does have this kind of feel they are trying to do an end run around themselves leading the prayer,” Garfield said. “And it’s still happening at a formal governmental meeting where members of the community should have equal standing. Personally, I think it’s problematic.”

The settlement left at least one plaintiff unsettled. Barbara Mullin told DelawareOnline that the acceptance of the 23rd Psalm “still leaves out, in my mind, atheists and Hindus and a lot of other things.”

Such court decisions trouble Ed Joyce, head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State Delaware Valley Chapter, who is of the opinion that government should simply remain neutral about religion.

“People just drop in to complain about a drainage issue and have to sit through a prayer. It’s more difficult on the local level than the national level,” he said. “There are so many places for prayers to be made, religious proclamations, churches, billboards, ads in newspapers. We just ask to keep the two institutions separate.”

Americans United, Joyce said, is not anti religious, and has clergy and faith leaders on its advisory board.

“We recognize religion plays an important part in our society. Just as government plays an important function,” Joyce said. “We ask to keep these two separate. Regardless of what the Supreme Court decides next year, it just makes good sense to keep the two separate so we don’t have to deal with these problems.”

For now, anyone in attendance at the Newberry meetings would be hard pressed to find objections to the moment of prayer. For the past six months, someone from the public invariably takes the floor and leads the gathering in prayer.

Keener could not recall the name of the group or organization that sent the letter requesting supervisors discontinue the practice. Prior to that, no one had ever objected to the practice, he said.

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